Prime Video just dropped the trailer for “Them: The Scare,” and it looks like creator and executive producer Little Marvin has some new tricks up his sleeve.
The first edition, “Them: Covenant,” was met with mixed reviews when it premiered in 2021; the performances from its stars like Deborah Ayorinde and Shahadi Wright Joseph were nothing short of spectacular.
The second installment of the horror anthology series will return to Los Angeles and Ayorinde returns in a lead role. This time, however, we’ve fast-forwarded to 1991, and she’s playing LAPD homicide detective Dawn Reeve, who is assigned to a new case: the gruesome murder of a foster home mother that has left even the most hardened detectives shaken. Navigating a tumultuous time in Los Angeles, a city on the razor’s edge of chaos, Dawn is determined to stop the killer. But as she draws closer to the truth, something ominous and malevolent grips her and her family.
New additions to the cast include Pam Grier as Athena and Grammy-nominated musician and actor Luke James as Edmund Gaines. Joshua J. Williams, Jeremy Bobb, Wayne Knight, Carlito Olivero, Charles Brice, and Iman Shumpert will round out the cast.
In an interview with theGrio in 2021, Little Marvin explained why he took the approach he did, what kind of story he wanted to tell and why the trauma depicted was necessary.
“The show wasn’t interested in coddling or placating anybody. And, by the way, I mean white and Black. It wasn’t interested in doing that. I think a lot of things coddle, and I think there’s a time and a place for that. We weren’t particularly interested in giving you the easy way out because so often in life, we don’t get that easy way out,” he explained.
“We never set out to make a show about trauma, about Black trauma. We set out to make a show with Black folks that centered Black folks, that was complex, that was nuanced, that was emotionally rich,” he continued. “But the show was always about navigating the terror of whiteness. It was not about exploring Black trauma. It was about navigating the terror of whiteness and particularly the terror of white supremacy in this country.”
The series that featured Ashley Thomas, Allison Pill, and Anika Noni Rose had some folks singing its praises while others were up in arms over the magnitude of brutality inflicted on the show’s Black characters.
According to Little Marvin, the gruesome acts of violence we saw in “Them: Covenant” were intentionally awful because that’s the truth about the era it was exploring.
“I think it’s time we called the Jim Crow South what it has always been: It was a domestic terror regime,” he says. “That’s what it was, plain and simple. We’re talking about a place where lynching was a pastime, a lynching was a sport and a spectacle. This is the history of the country. I don’t think it’s our business as artists to whitewash that history. I think it’s our business as artists, personally speaking, is to bear witness. It’s my job to bear witness.”
“Them: The Scare” will hit Prime Video on April 25.
Check out the trailer:
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